Student Level Factors

School Level Factors It is very important that we as an educationally unit establish effective factors that can be used in our school system today. There is a true difference when comparing an effective school with one that is ineffective. The fact that effective schools have a higher passing rate than that of an ineffective school, the statistics say an effective school has 65.8% passing and 34.2% failing, as opposed to an ineffective school with 34.2% passing and 65.8% failing. Therefore, why are the ineffective schools not achieving that of the effective schools? Ineffective schools lack the ability to set goals and pursue them. Over thirty-five years there has been this on going research of school effectiveness. This consisted of a list of school-level factors that researchers feel is the key traits of an effective school. The most famous list of school-level factors came from Good and Brophy during the 1970’s. Good and Brophy listed five factors that were important;
 Strong administration
 Basic skill acquisition
 High expectation for student achievement
 Safe and Orderly atmosphere for conducive learning

 Monitoring student progress
Good and Brophy factor list creates a great start for any school that was looking to change their dynamics and become that effective school. It is very important to have a strong administration much more leadership that will aid in building up the basic skill of acquisition. It is extremely vital that students receive the highest level of expectation; a wise man once said, “Reach for the moon and if you miss you fall among the stars”. In essence, reach for your goal and even if you do not get there, you will be closer than you were before. Levine and Lezotte, another research group proposed their list of school-level factors that contained two more factors than that of Good and Brophy did not list:
 Practiced-oriented staff development
 Prominent parent involvement
It is essential that staff development be practiced to enable them to grow as educators for their schools. Most important of all, are the educators getting the students’ parents involved in the education of their children. These are just a few factors that have interested me in getting schools to become more effective in their achievement in students and overall appeal to the education system. Many more researchers have come up with their own list of school-level factors, like Marzano, Edmonds, and Sammons each giving their idea of what is important to produce that effective school. Interesting, enough Marzano had made two lists of school-level factors, but he finalized his factors with these:

 Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum
 Challenging Goals and effective feedback
 Parental and Community Involvement
 Safe and Orderly environment
 Collegiality and Professionalism

Some factors that Marzano had listed incorporate all the other school-level factors into his five levels, which is at rate in order of importance. In order for schools to operate, they must have explicit and realistic curriculum, teachers must give clear and practical study. Demanding objective and effective feedback, it is one thing for a student to read on their report card of their progress, it is another to actually receive that feedback from the teacher’s lips. Seeing is believing, but not for a student who needs that affirmation of a job well done. Parental and community involvement; getting the parents and the community involve will open up the doors for students, teachers, staff, and administrators to do more in developing greater achievement, achievement not just in academics, but also in the social interaction and through the experiences and observations of the community. Safe and orderly environment; ensuring that students feel safe and that the schools maintain control. No one benefits from a chaotic classroom environment weather it is the students or the teachers. In addition, cooperative interaction among colleagues and professionalism within the environment, in professionalism and collegiality within a classroom there should be are air of respect between the Administration and the teachers. Just make sure that the leadership in the school is working together to better the education. These five factors that Marzano came up with are a great asset to schools all over the Unites States. It is with the institution of basic factors, which create a goal that schools can achieve greatness. These components are what will enhance the effectiveness in schools. Overall, it is clearly stated that there can be a change for schools to become more effective.